Gov. Beverly Perdue today declined to take steps to make public an internal state Highway Patrol investigation into missing records pertaining to her predecessor's travels in 2005.
Patrol officials say the internal affairs investigation, the second of two internal probes into the missing records, cleared a patrol supervisor involved in the records' disappearance, Capt. Alan Melvin. But neither the patrol or its boss, state Crime Control Secretary Reuben Young, are making the report public.
They cite state law that keeps most personnel matters secret. But the law includes an exemption for the release of personnel records when an agency's integrity is in question.
Perdue did not directly answer a reporter's question as to whether she would order the report released. She suggested she did not have the legal authority to do so.
"I'm not a lawyer," said Perdue, a New Bern Democrat. "I'm trying to follow the rules of the law ... I'm constantly told this is privileged information."
More after the jump.
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The missing records have created a storm of controversy for the patrol and are now part of state and federal investigations into perks provided to then-Gov. Mike Easley and his family.
Records the patrol has found and released have helped show that Easley received free air travel from fundraisers whom he appointed to important positions in state government.
The first internal probe, released last week, said that a patrol secretary had been told by Melvin in February 2006 to download the records on to a computer disk to give to him. Melvin headed Easley's security detail from 2003 to 2007.
The patrol secretary, Diane Bumgardner, said that Melvin then told her to delete the records from her computer to "free up space on the computer."
She said in an interview with The News & Observer on Friday that she never expressed a problem with the computer's space capacity.
Young said that interview caused him to request an independent investigation of the missing records, and to put Melvin back on administrative duty. The patrol has yet to announce who would conduct that probe.
Senate Minority Leader Phil Berger, a Rockingham County Republican, and Joe Sinsheimer, a Democratic consultant turned government watchdog, said the internal affairs investigation needs to be released. They said the first internal probe raises far more questions than it answers.
Sinsheimer said the initial probe looked "amateurish."
"It just looked to me like someone going through the motions to say they did it," Sinsheimer said.
Both said an independent investigation is needed and the findings need to be made public.
"There are all kinds of conflicts of interest that are sweeping through this whole thing and it just cries out for an independent prosecutor," Berger said.
Perdue said she too is having a hard time with the explanations offered so far for the records' disappearance.
"It may have been a mistake," she said, "but it's a mistake that's hard to swallow."
She has ordered the patrol to take steps to maintain its security detail records.
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Perdue: Promise to be transparent?
Mark it down as another campaign promise that has been conveniently, and perhaps selfishly, cast aside by Beverly